Thousands of pages of records from the Clinton presidency are being made public this afternoon, potentially offering fresh insights into Hillary Clinton as she considers whether to run for president in 2016. Here is our live dive through the documents.

The Clinton library released, as expected, a batch of documents at 1 p.m. The 4,000 or so pages are part of a cache of 33,000 pages of Clinton presidential records that had been withheld from various public records requests because they were exempt from disclosure under the law governing presidential records.

Hillary Clinton, from a transcript of in September 1993 remarks to House and Senate Democratic leaders about health-care:

We have tried (inadible) as carefully as possible all the alternatives and all the features that are in this plan,

and I think that there will be, very honestly, a period of adjustment–a period of setting, before any of you will feel comfortable with all the features of this, because we are really approaching the health care system in a different way.

Clinton (and later Obama) health-policy aide Chris Jennings writes to speechwriter Jeff Shesol in February 1999: “One more thing, which I know you can do little to nothing about: The President keeps claiming that prescription drug coverage will save money over the long-run. While there are definitely individual cases where this is true, in aggregate, any new drug benefit will require significant new investments —for both the short and long-term. Oh well…” Page 166.

FACTOID:Federal archivists estimate that the Clinton Library has a total of 70 million pages of material and more than 23 million emails. Only about 4% of this material has been reviewed and made available to the public. Archivists are still sorting through the rest of the material, a process which could take years.

HILLARY’S IMAGE: A 1995 memo discusses ways to improve Mrs. Clinton’s image as the first lady’s staff contemplates how to generate positive press coverage. Lisa Caputo, who served as deputy assistant to the president and Mrs. Clinton’s press secretary, offers a long list of ideas, saying that the first lady should “own the women’s media.” (Starts on page 19 of this document.)

Ms. Caputo writes that the Clintons’ 20th wedding anniversary is a wonderful opportunity that could yield upbeat stories about the occasion. Mrs. Clinton could throw a big party and then share photos of the event, as well as pictures from the Clintons’ honeymoon, with People magazine, the memo said.

“This might be a nice time peg to have the President and Hillary do a special joint interview with Barbara Walters,” Ms. Caputo wrote. “If we did an interview around the anniversary time peg, it would not appear to be political.”

HILLARY’S IMAGE, PART II:Ms. Caputo also suggests that Mrs. Clinton should consider doing a guest appearance on the TV show “Home Improvement.” “I know this may sound like a wild idea, but I think it is an interesting one to discuss,” she wrote.

Ms. Caputo added that the show would present the Mrs. Clinton “in a very likeable light.”

“Although I have some concerns that it diminishes the role of First Lady by going on a TV sitcom, it is probably worth weighing it against what we believe we might be able to gain by such an appearance politically and image-wise.

Speechwriters Michael Waldman and David Shipley were working on a draft in June1996 of President Bill Clinton’s remarks to the National Homeownership Summit. The speech initially included a line, We are making homeownership accessible for those who want to take on a responsibility that demands a tremendous amount of us as wage-earners and as citizens: [For those homeowners who have been up at 3 A.M. trying to fix a burst pipe, words other than responsibility may come to mind.]”

Ellen Seidman of the National Economic Council sent Mr. Shipley a note on June 5, 1996, asking, among other things: “Have you given any thought to potential smarmy comments from the fact that the President hasn’t owned a home of his own in years (ever?). It was cute, but I’d drop it.” (From this document, page 54.)

President Bill Clinton, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter Chelsea, along with Dacie Marshall, five and one-half, sing during the Pageant of Peace on the Ellipse in Washington, Dec. 7, 1994.

HILLARY’S IMAGE, PART III:The Caputo memo, dated August 31, 1995, notes that the Internet is becoming a popular mode of communication. “Hillary could speak to young women through Internet,” it says. Ms. Caputo concludes her list of 16 media possibilities with the suggestion that Mrs. Clinton’s advisers and staff should socialize more with the media. “I believe it would create enormous good will for Hillary since we can all tell wonderful Hillary anecdotes that humanize her and show the press the good person that she is,” Ms. Caputo wrote.

HILLARY CLINTON ON HEALTH CARE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE ‘SHOCK WAVES’: Speaking to House and Senate leaders in September 1993, she said (pages 6-8):

From the very beginning, we have looked at the alternatives available for reaching universal coverage and what (inaudible) open to us. Obviously, there are those who are very strong single-payer advocates. But, in our conversations, which have been ongoing, it has been very difficult for them to identify those sources of public financing that they really thought realistically could pass the Congress to substitute for the private sector investment.

… If the Republican alternative, as it appears now to be shaping up, at least among the moderate Republicans in the Senate, is an individual mandate, we have looked at that in every way we know how to (inaudible). That is politically and substantively a much harder sell than the one we’ve got — a much harder sell.

Because not only will you be saying that the individual bears the full responsibility; you will be sending shock waves through the currently insured population that if there is no requirement that employers continue to insure, then they, too, may bear the individual responsibility.

MAKING CONGRESS HAPPY: Passing a health law will be impossible “without identifying, getting to know, educating, stroking, and responding to an ideologically diverse and ego sensitive Congress that, individually and collectively, has become more and more independent,’’ one February 1993 memo from Chris Jennings to Ira Magaziner says. (Page 109 of this document.)

“This is a time consuming, redundant process that can seem to be (and frequently is) frustrating. But it is essential to increase the likelihood of a positive reception to the eventual Clinton health reform proposal.”

Notes taken by speechwriter Jeff Shesol prior to the signing of a bulletproof- vest bill in June 1998 indicate Clinton aide Rahm Emmanuel’s thoughts on National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston: “Shove it up his ass,” Shesol’s note reads. Emmanuel went on to become President Barack Obama’s chief of staff and is now mayor of Chicago. [JEFF SHESOL 1, PAGE 82]

THE RACIAL DIVIDE: On October 12, 1995, speechwriter David Shipley wrote to Don Baer, George Stephanopoulos, Ann Lewis, Bill Curry and Dick Morris—some of President Bill Clinton’s top advisers—and emphasized the need for the president to address racism.

“The whole country is waiting for the President to talk about the racial divide. If he does not step up to the plate, it will be seen as an abdication of leadership,” Mr. Shipley wrote. MORE

CHOOSING YOUR DOCTOR: In a memo related (this link, page 82) to the upcoming 1994 State of the Union address, as the administration continued to push its health care plan, one aide warned:

We have a line on p. 10 that says “you’ll pick the health plan and doctor of your choice.” That sounds great and I know that it’s just what people want to hear. But can we get away with it? Isn’t the whole point our health plan to steer people toward cheaper, HMO-style providers? It’s one thing to say we’ll preserve your option to pick the doctor of your choice, it’s quite another to appear to promise the nation that everyone will get to pick the doctor of his or her choice. And that’s what this line does. I am worried about getting skewered for over-promising here on something we know full well we won’t deliver.

Our goal is health insurance everybody can depend on: comprehensive benefits that cover preventive care and prescription drugs; health premiums that don’t just explode when you get sick or you get older; the power, no matter how small your business is, to choose dependable insurance at the same competitive rates governments and big business get today; one simple form for people who are sick; and most of all, the freedom to choose a plan and the right to choose your own doctor.

(Correction: The 1994 White House memo said the “whole thrust” of the plan; initial version of this post incorrectly had it as “whole point” of the plan.)

STYLE POINTERS FOR HILLARY AHEAD OF SENATE BID: As Mrs. Clinton laid the groundwork for her U.S. Senate bid, adviser Mandy Grunwald offered several style pointers ahead of the first lady’s three-day “listening tour” across New York.

In a 1999 memo (page 86), Ms. Grunwald urges Mrs. Clinton to be chatty and “don’t be defensive.”

“The press is obviously watching to see if they can make you uncomfortable or testy,” Ms. Grunwald wrote. “Even on the annoying questions, give relaxed answers.” MORE

DEJA VU ON HEALTH CARE: Health-care aide Chris Jennings to Hillary Clinton, on April 26, 1993, ahead of meeting with meeting with House and Senate Democratic leaders:

”Most important of all, however, is to work to try to make them feel, once again, that a vote for health care can be sold as a positive vote to run on, rather than a negative vote that Members feel that they will be forced to defend.” (This document, page 82.)

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses a special session of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing Tuesday, September 5, 1995.

Advice on working with journalists: When Hillary Clinton traveled to Beijing for a United Nations conference in 1995, her press secretary offered advice [p. 129] about how to maximize media coverage, detailing which outlets were interested in women’s issues and which reporters liked the first lady.

In a 1995 memo, Lisa Caputo, who served as deputy assistant to the president and Mrs. Clinton’s press secretary, wrote up a list of suggested interviews and press events that the first lady should consider doing after her trip. Ms. Caputo also provided her assessment of every reporter that would be traveling with Mrs. Clinton to China and Mongolia.

HEALTH-CARE STRATEGY: Mike Lux, a special assistant to the president for public liaison, discussed “interest group strategy” for the health-care law in a 1993 memo to Clinton adviser Ira Magaziner(page 218). He outlined three essential components: keeping the health industry divided, winning significant business support, and energizing groups that “should be our natural base groups”—including labor, consumer groups, aging groups, and liberal Democratic interest groups.

Mr. Lux considered groups including the American Nurses Association, the National Association for Home Care, and the American Psychiatric Association to be part of the administration’s “natural base.”

The plan’s biggest opposition within the health industry would come from independent insurance agents, Mr. Lux said. “They are effective, they’re everywhere, they have relationships with other small business people, and our plan will really harm their livelihood,” he said.

Small business groups, like the National Restaurant Association, would provide the toughest aggressive organizational opposition, he said, and the administration would need an “aggressive grassroots effort” to combat them.

He added that the politics of including abortion in the bill “are obvious.” The bill would need to include either abortion itself or “more general ‘reproductive health’ language that a national health board would use to include abortion later,” or else women’s groups would oppose the bill, he said.

Advice on working with journalists, II: Ms. Caputo gives many of the journalists high marks, pointing out which ones she believes are fond of the first lady. Ms. Caputo wrote to Mrs. Clinton that Terry Hunt, then a reporter for the Associated Press, is a “fan of yours” and also “an all-around good person.”

Claire Shipman, then a correspondent for CNN, is easygoing and “fair and positive toward you,” the memo said. Ms. Shipman is the wife of Obama Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Ms. Caputo wrote that Ann Compton of ABC is usually very fair, adding, “I believe we made her a Hillary fan on the South Asia trip.”

Senior health adviser Gary Claxton wrote in a September 1994 memo to fellow health policy adviser Chris Jennings that the health-insurance market effect of certain insurance reforms then being considered—including guaranteed renewability of coverage, limited preexisting condition exclusions, and the elimination of discriminatory rate increases and lifetime and annual limits—would be minimal. The effect on premium levels would be “modest,” he said, and would raise them by a maximum of 1-2%. Overall, the reforms would “address some serious problems in the insurance market without disrupting current arrangements in the insurance market,” Mr. Claxton wrote.

Don’t Forget Sen. Moynihan: In a May 1993 memo to Hillary Clinton, health policy adviser Chris Jennings offered advice on how she and the president could best coddle Senate leadership in an upcoming meeting, saying that the group was “very supportive” of health care reform. Mr. Jennings advised Mrs. Clinton to “tap into the experience and expertise” of the senators on the issue of health care, saying, “The Members love to be asked, particularly by someone they feel already knows the issues so well.”

“Find a way to get Chairman Moynihan engaged into the conversation,” he said, referring to New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who died in 2003. “We do not want him to feel excluded or set apart in any way.”

Comments (5 of 29)

Be sure to wear gloves when handling the original documents. Those may not be coffee stains.

5:41 pm February 28, 2014

jw wrote:

GOP strategy to win make her wear a dress!!

4:57 pm February 28, 2014

2016 wrote:

tea baggers are doomed lol

4:54 pm February 28, 2014

TIM wrote:

Harry Reid you don't know what your talking about I'm one of those, and it is true, you better zip it till you know the actual truth, because your not even close !

4:49 pm February 28, 2014

GTH wrote:

Ah the hillary your looking at is not the worn out one that you see today, just remember she got beat out by the worst president in USA history, and that includes Carter, well he did have a real job at one time ( Carter ), bozo is still trying to get into seven eleven and is not making much headway !

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